Sex with alleged Chester peadophile scared me, says woman

A WOMAN has told a court she felt “disgusted, horrible and scared” after she was forced to have sex with an alleged paedophile.

The final two alleged victims of former city restaurant manager Ramsey Ramsey, 79, gave evidence at Chester Crown Court yesterday on the fifth day of a trial.

Ramsey, who formerly worked for many years at the Bombay Palace restaurant on Upper Northgate Street, is accused of 37 sexual offences against five girls under 16 in the 1980s and 1990s. He denies any wrongdoing.

One victim who gave evidence told the jury she was 14 when she was raped by Ramsey after he had befriended her and made her feel “grown up”.

She said when she was about 14 or 15 her friends used to hang out in Delamere Street near the Bombay Palace until they were invited in by Ramsey. Once they were in there, they were given alcohol and cigarettes by Ramsey and eventually they started to go there two or three times a week.

Eventually she and a friend were invited to his flat on the Promenade in Southport where they were given more alcohol by Ramsey before being taken down into his basement bedroom and raped one after the other.

The witness said this happened in Southport around five times but she was also sexually assaulted at the Bombay Palace.

She also said she was taken to a house in Chester and made to have sex with another man on Ramsey’s instruction.

She said her friend, who gave evidence on Friday, was “Ramsey’s favourite” and she would get more attention from him. The pair would write letters to Ramsey.

John Wyn Williams, prosecuting, gave the woman a number of letters recovered from Ramsey’s home on Grange Road, Newton. The woman confirmed she had written the letters but said she could not remember what her state of mind was at the time when she wrote them.

One of the letters began “Dear the big R” and said “I can’t wait until my lips caress your lips”. Another asked for alcohol, adding “I can’t wait until you take us to the Lakes for the day. We would like you to buy us two bottles of cider and a bottle of vodka” before it was signed off with “lots of sexual thoughts”.

Simon Mills, defending, said Ramsey had never touched the woman sexually but had tried to help her as her life was “going out of control” at the time.

The woman said she “didn’t believe” Ramsey was trying to help her and he had sexually abused her as a child.

The final victim in the case told the court Ramsey had taken indecent photographs of her and tried to sexually assault her.

When she was 14, Ramsey had driven her and a friend to his flat in Southport and taken photographs of her naked with a Polaroid camera.

The woman said she had met Ramsey after she had been invited in by another staff member with a few friends. She said she began going there regularly and was given alcohol in the restaurant and Ramsey would often speak to her and her friends and warn them off “smelly young boys”.

She said she was invited with another friend to go to Southport to visit the fair and after Ramsey had taken them there they had gone back to his flat and started drinking.

After a short while the woman was asked to go downstairs with Ramsey where he asked her to remove all of her clothes while he took photographs. The woman said she felt “uncomfortable” and remembered Ramsey saying “don’t worry these are just for me”.

The witness also alleged she was given an orange candle to perform a sex act, which she refused.

The woman then said she went back upstairs and later that day she started to want to destroy the pictures. She said: “I came home and I started to realise it was not right. I felt really uncomfortable about the whole thing and I wanted them [the pictures] back.

“I remember when I was getting dressed thinking ‘what has just happened’? The more I thought about it the more sick I felt.”

The woman told the jury she went back with the same friend to the house in Southport. She managed to retrieve the pictures from a box in his wardrobe where there were around 20 other pictures of women.

She said she destroyed the pictures and Ramsey confronted her about it.
The witness then told the court about another incident at the Bombay Palace where she and a friend had been taken upstairs to his room where there was a pornographic film on. She said Ramsey had tried to force her head towards his groin which she had resisted before he had gone behind a curtain with her friend.

Mr Mills said Ramsey denies taking any photographs of the woman and denied trying to sexually assault her.

The court also heard from the owner of the flats in Southport where Ramsey lived, Craig Morrison, who told the court he had seen Ramsey there with teenage girls “once or twice”.

Mr Mills asked Mr Morrison whether the girls looked like they were in distress and Mr Morrison replied “no”.